There are different ways of ending a story. You can
end where you began, back on square one, or something has changed during the
course of the story so that the end turns in to a starting point of a different
story. A third way is to panic and end it with “and then a bear came along and
eat everyone” or the more modern version of the same idea “and then there was
an atom bomb that exploded and everybody died”. Of course there are stories
that never end, they just go on and on into eternity.

Personally I think it’s more difficult to end a story
than to start one. You can start wherever you want, a lot of the time it’s
handy to just jump in, mid-point, bang, and you’re off. Or you can choose to
start slowly, build and atmosphere, present the world of the story and its characters
before you get into what’s going on. In the beginning you have time and an
unlimited amount of alternatives and options. When you’re writing the end you
have to decide. Decide where you’re going to end, which is difficult, since the
characters keep on going even if you stop writing about them. So the ending,
when and how you end the story, is what gives insight into what you as the
writer is really about. And that’s problematic, since you – or at least I –
might not know that until afterwards. Sometimes years afterwards.

For the reader, and even more so for the audience
watching a theatre performance, the ending is what colours the experience and
the interpretation of the story. For me a good ending has many different
elements, but what I’m thinking about a lot at the moment is a final image. The
last few sequences of the story, after the climax. What is it that the audience
sees? Is it a scenic image loaded with meaning, open to interpretation, that
answers some of the questions but at the same time manages to ask new ones?

In the story I’m working on at the moment I originally
had an idea about what the final sequences or images might be. For the
different reasons I moved on from that and started looking for a new end. With
almost an entire first draft finished I can’t postpone it anymore, even if it
doesn’t turn out to be the ending I’ll use in the end. I have an idea about
what the climax is going to be, the sequence where it all explodes so to speak,
but since I don’t want to end the story in the middle of the climax I need
something to round it all off. A chance for the audience to breath before the
lights go to black and the curtain comes down, that moment when the dust
settles. But I don’t know what it’s going to be. And my dead line is Friday.

It’s’ been quite on the blog lately and that’s mainly
because my diary is full of dead-lines at the moment, and the next couple of
months. When you’re at the stage when this hasn’t led to a state of panic (yet)
you (that is to say I) tend to tell yourself that it’s all going to work out,
you just need to sleep on it and the ideas, insights and the text will appear
when they need to. It almost feels like a game of Russian roulette. Just because
things in the past have work out more often than not, there are no guarantees,
of course not, that that’s what’s going to happen this time. It can all crashand burn. Big time.

When I look at my diary I realise I have to think
about this autumn as I would a marathon race. Not that I’ve ever actually run
one, but I imagine it’s quite demanding. So, there’s no point in burning all
one’s energy now, but instead try to keep an even, steady pace to be able to
make it all the way across the finish line.

Really, this problem, if you want to look at it that
way – or challenge, if you want to look at it that way, developed at a much
earlier point. A point where one thinks: “Yeah, sure, I’ll have time for that,
that shouldn’t be a problem, lots of time ‘til then, it’ll work out.” In most
cases because you’ve had a great idea that you just can’t, or don’t even want
to, let go off. Or because you’ve been made an offer you couldn’t refuse. The mortgage
has to be paid every month. Some times that means having four different jobs or
projects at different stages at the same time. Other times it means having one.
At the moment I’m looking forward to other times. Although, if everything goes according to
plans, it’s going to be a while until I get there.

Some other time I’ll write about yesterday and what it
was like working on a roll (sorry - pun intended), but if I forget: It was brilliant!

Röster från Skillnaden: Svenska Teatern från 1930-talet till 2010-talet (utgiven av Förlaget) /// My book about the history of the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki from the 1930s to the 2010s (published by Förlaget)